Remember Nvidia ION? It was a way of adding a bit more GPU muscle to Atom-based nettops a few years ago and it made sense, since Atoms at the time were weaklings with a terrible GPU and it many cases they even struggled with 1080p content.

Now that low voltage parts from Intel and AMD feature much more powerful graphics, very few vendors choose to use a discrete GPU on their mini PCs and notebooks based around Atoms and AMD APUs, but there is a catch. UHD or 4K is coming and although few people actually need it at the moment it is nice marketing tool. A somewhat more powerful GPU should make cheap systems a bit more future proof and since people don’t tend to upgrade their media PCs that often, it makes sense.

Zotac’s new ZBOX ID45 resurrects the ION concept, but with a much more powerful CPU in tow. It is based on an Ivy Bridge Core i3-3227U clocked at 1.9GHz and it features an Nvidia GT 640 GPU with 2GB of DDR3. The GPU is 4K capable and users can choose between HDMI, DVI-I and VGA outputs (of course you can’t get UHD on the latter).

“ZOTAC has always married the capabilities of energy-efficient Intel processors with incredible NVIDIA GeForce graphics since the first ZBOX shipped with NVIDIA ION,” said Carsten Berger, senior director, ZOTAC International. “The latest ZBOX ID45 series pushes that synergy even further with greater performance while maintaining excellent energy-efficiency.”

The rest of the package is more or less standard. Ivy based ZBOX systems have been around for a while, but this one features 802.11ac wireless, which should come in handy for high-resolution streaming. It also has gigabit Ethernet, just in case. The design hasn’t been changed and it might be time for Zotac to tweak it a bit. The ZBOX has been around for four years and it could do with a new paint job or an even bigger makeover.

There is still no word on the price and as always the new ZBOX will be available as a barebones unit or a complete system with the Plus moniker, in which case you’ll get 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive.

Expected to launch alongside the GTX 660, Mydrivers.com managed to get their hands on some details and a picture of the upcoming GTX 650 graphics card.

The GTX 650 is expected to be based on the same GK107 chip seen behind the GT 640 graphics card and feature 384 CUDA cores and 16 ROPs. Unlike the GT 640, the GTX 650 GK107 GPU will be paired up 1GB of faster GDDR5 memory. The new GTX 650 graphics card has a 65W TDP and should end up with a similar GPU clock as the GT 640. It will no feature GPU Boost but should hold its ground with 5GHz GDDR5 clocked memory.

According to our info this one should be based on the GK107-450 GPU and should launch alongside the GTX 660. According to early rumors, Nvidia also apparently plans the GTX 650 Ti graphics card based on the GK106 GPU for October.

Zotac has announced two more graphics cards that will be a part of its completely silent Zone Edition graphics cards, the GT 640 Zone Edition and GT 630 Zone Edition.

As we already wrote quite a while ago, the GT 630 is basically the GT 440 based on the GF108 GPU with 96 CUDA cores, just placed in a shiny new box. In case of Zotac, the GT 630 Zone Edition works at 750MHz for the GPU, features 96 CUDA cores working at 1500MHz shader clock and has 1GB of DDR3 memory clocked at 1333MHz and paired up with a 128-bit memory interface.

Unfortunately, the new GT 630 Zone Edition graphics card is neither low-profile nor a single slot graphics card, so it will not appeal to slim HTPC users. It features a rather hefty heatsink that, as noted, takes up two slots and even extends slightly over the top and to the back of the PCB.

The GT 640 Zone Edition is, on the other hand, based on the 28nm GK107 GPU. It works at 900MHz for the GPU, has 384 CUDA cores and features 2GB of DDR3 memory clocked at 1782MHz and paired up with 128-bit memory interface. Again, it is paired up with a rather hefty dual-slot heatsink that extends over and to the back of the PCB and features with three copper heatpipes. It is not only a full sized PCB but takes even more space due to the size of the heatsink, despite the shortness of the GT 640 PCB.

Of course, there are users who appreaciate the golden silence and the cards will surely find their place on the market. You can check out the GT 630 Zone Edition here and GT 640 Zone Edition here.

Point of View and its TGT overclocking and tuning team have just launched the Ultra Charged version of the GT 640 graphics card that features a high factory-overclock.

Based on Nvidia's 28nm GK107 Kepler GPU, it features 384 CUDA cores organized in 2 SMX clusters and paired up with a 128-bit memory interface. The reference design puts the GPU at 901MHz for the GPU and 1782MHz for either 1 or 2GB of DDR3 memory.

The POV/TGT GT 640 Ultra Charged on the other hand puts the GPU at an impressive 1006MHz while memory ends up factory overclocked to 2020MHz. The new GT 640 Ultra Charged graphics card still features a full height PCB and a single slot design.

The POV/TGT GT 640 Ultra Charged is, according to Point of View, available immediatelly with a suggested retail/e-tail price set at €115 incl. VAT.

We alreadywrote about the mess that Nvidia made with its rebranded GT 630, GT 620 and Geforce 610 lineup here, and now finally we get to write about a totaly new part based on a new GPU, rather than a old rebranded one, the GK107 based GT 640.

Meant to be a part of lower mid-range Nvidia Geforce offer (previously rebranded GT 630/620/Geforce 210 as entry-level), the GT 640 is basically the same as the previously introduced (and also GK107 based) Geforce 640M mobile graphics card. It still features the same 28nm GK107 Kepler GPU with 384 CUDA cores orginized in 2 SMX clusters that share a single Raster Engine inside a single GPC. That single GPC unit shares a total of 16 ROPs/32 texture units, 256KB of L2 cache and two 64-bit memory controllers, adding up to 128-bit memory interface.

The GK107 GPU itself is based on TSMC's 28nm manufacturing process, has 1.3 billion transistors inside a 118mm2 die.

Although it is pretty much the same thing as the Geforce GT 640M, it has much higher GPU and memory clocks. The GPU eneded up clocked 900MHz. The only surprise is the memory. Although connected to the 128-bit memory interface, Nvidia decided that its reference design will feature up to 2GB of DDR3 memory, rather than GDDR5. The almost 1.8GHz clock and 128-bit memory interface add up to a total of 28.5GB/s of memory bandwidth which is pretty low even for a lower mid-range graphics card.

The TDP is set at 65W, just a shy away from 75W which PCI-Express slot has to offer and might be the sole reason why Nvidia decided to go for the DDR3 rather than GDDR5 memory, although we suspect that some AIB partners will certainly come up with a way to go for better and faster memory.

Nvidia reference design has one last unpleasant surprise and that is a full height PCB, rather than a low-profile one. The lower mid-range has been always considered as a HTPC heaven since they offer decent performance and can be squeezed on the low-profile PCB. Fortunatelly, Nvidia AIB partners have been given a green light for custom designs and it is just a matter of time before we see a low-profile version.

The price, at least for Nvidia reference design, is set at US $99, which makes it a direct competitor to AMD's Radeon HD 7750. In case you do not remember, AMD HD 7750 is based on Cape Verde GPU with 512 stream processors and 16 ROPs, has up to 1GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 128-bit memory interface, and works at 800MHz for the GPU and 1125MHz (4.5GHz effective) for memory. The HD 7750 is a tad bit expensive (around US $10 or so) but certainly offers quite a better punch when compared to the GT 640, at least in its DDR3 form.

In any case, the GT 640 is in for some rough seas and we would not be surprised if AMD gently adjusts the pricing on its Cape Verde GPU lineup.

Nvidia has updated its OEM desktop lineup by silently listing a total of five different graphics cards that simply made a mess of everything. It is now pretty hard to know which graphics card is based on the new 28nm GK107 GPU, or which are simply rebrands of the 40nm Fermi based GF116 and GF114 GPUs.

According to Nvidia's site, OEMs will get three different versions of the GT 640, as well as GT 630 and GT 645 graphics cards. Earlier, Nvidia has released GT 605 and GT 620 OEM-only graphics cards that were basically just a rebrands of GT 520 and Geforce 510 but with higher clocks. To make things worse, we already wrote that these Nvidia rebrands will also hit retail as well, at least when it comes to entry-level graphics cards like the GT 620, GT 630 and Geforce 610.

As for the newely listed graphics cards, it appears that two of those, one version of the GT 640 and GT 645 will be rebrands again, based on the GF116 and GF114 GPUs. The other three, two other versions of the GT 640 and the GT 640 are apparently based on the 28nm GK107 GPU. These 28nm GK107 based OEM graphics cards will feature up to 384 CUDA cores and will feature a 128-bit memory interface with either DDR3 or GDDR5 memory, depending on the SKU. You can check out the rest of the details including clocks in the table below, but the most easy way to differentiate rebrands from the new 28nm parts is actually support for PCI-Express 3.0, as rebrands are apparently all sticking to PCI-Express 2.1.

So, Nvidia has made quite a mess when it comes to OEM market and same thing is with mobile market as some will be based on Fermi GPU while only a couple of those will feature Kepler GPU, as we wrote here. Some Geforce GT 640 have already been listed in various desktop OEM systems, so it will be hard to guess which is just a rebrand and which system features the new 28nm graphics card.

You can try to make out some sense of Nvidia's product lineup page here.